A round about…Reinholds barn one of two in state with a different shape

Only two round barns are listed in the National Register of Historic Places in Pennsylvania and one is in Reinholds.

“The barn was constructed in the early 1940s by my great uncle, Daniel E. Fichthorn,” said Kurt Fichthorn, a 1973 Cocalico High School graduate.

Photo by Michele Walter Fry.Located in Reinholds, this is one of only two round barns located in Pennsylvania.

The barn is in good shape because Daniel was a farm hobbyist who didn’t believe in modern technology. It was built more than 50 years after the technology of using sweep power by horses in round barns became outdated.

“He wasn’t Mennonite, he just didn’t believe modern farming techniques should be used,” Kurt said.

In the early 1800s, the drive to increase farm production put horses to work on “treadmills.” A four-team mules or horses were used for “sweep power.”

The round barn staked a vertical tumbling rod in the center. A belt from the pulley on the ground jack drove the thresher for grain via a large leather belt and pulleys. A large cast iron bull gear was mounted horizontally on a frame in the middle so it could rotate like a turnstile.

Horses were hooked to a sweep and driven around in a circle, having to step over the tumbling rod on each round, walking at a pace of 2 1/4 miles per hour. The farmer had no reins, just a whip and his voice to control the horses. In the book “Machines of Plenty,” author Stewart Holbrook likened him to a circus ringmaster.

“However, according to my father, the horse-powered thresher was only used once and then abandoned,” said Kurt. “One explanation was that too much heat built up inside the barn making it uncomfortable for the team.”

The farm was not always in the Fichthorn family.

“The land was warranted to Nicholas Weinhold in 1746 by the William Penn family,” said Farley Fry, a descendant of the Weinholds. “Richard and Catherine (Frey) Weinhold then owned the farm and lived there until the Civil War when they moved out West. They called the 130-acre farm Lisbum Plantation. At that time, farms were called plantations.”

Daniel Fichthorn owned the farmhouse and 130 acres from 1938 to 1971, and then it was sold out of the family before it came back in to the Fichthorns — by accident.

In the early 2000s, Fichthorn, with his wife, Tracy, wanted to move back to the area after living in New Jersey, but they didn’t know his old family farm was for sale. They noticed the “For Sale” sign while house-hunting but heard rumors that it was ready for demolition for development.

The land had been bought by a developer who wanted to turn it into one-acre lots for new home construction. The rare 31-foot octagonal barn and all of the other barns were to be torn down.

“East Cocalico thought about relocating the (circle) barn to the area around the township building, but that fell through,” said Fichthorn.

In the fall of 2005, the couple were able to buy the original 1,600-square-foot rundown farmhouse, outbuildings, and just over 5½ acres of the farmland. They renovated and added on to the original 1841 house.

The barns were also restored to their original construction.

“It’s unusual that outbuildings such as the barns would be preserved by the current owner,” Fry said. “Usually they are the first to come down.”

In those days, the barn was built before the house, and the Weinhold barn still stands with a date stone of 1838.